


Harmonious Brushwork

by Delphi



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Body Calligraphy, Established Relationship, M/M, Romance, Writing on Skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeong Jeong is neither a good guest nor fine paper, but Piandao doesn't seem to mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harmonious Brushwork

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the February 2013 Kink Bingo Mini-Challenge: Multimedia. Source images are from the episodes "The Deserter" and "Sokka's Master".

Jeong Jeong is not a fit guest for hospitality the likes of which Piandao provides. Perhaps once, when he was still a man of rank, he had possessed a stoic tolerance for protocol, but those days are long past him. It is strange enough to live behind walls again, and to sleep in a bed, and to share that bed more nights than not.

"Hn."

This is all Piandao's man has to say as they pass in the courtyard, although the sound is punctuated by the unimpressed curl of lip and brow.

Jeong Jeong, fresh from an afternoon swim in the river and dressed only in his smallclothes, affects to pay him no mind. He suspects the butler views him as akin to an untrained eel hound pup that Piandao has brought indoors to be hand-reared—and with a taste of sour amusement, Jeong Jeong vigorously shakes the water from his unbound hair before proceeding inside.

Piandao's bedroom is closer than his own, and far less grudgingly tended; as he suspected, the fire is already built up and blazing. There is an ache in his bones from swimming hard against the current and from the bracing chill of the falling water. He lies down on the cool floor, stretched out on his stomach with his head pillowed on his arms, and basks in the warm embrace of the fire. Only for a minute, he thinks—but then, sleep comes upon him easily these days, and the soft crackling soon lulls him into a nap.

It cannot be more than an hour, judging by the quality of light, before he stirs. He opens his eyes. The fire is subtly flaring and receding in time with his own slow breathing. The approaching footsteps that woke him are almost silent. Piandao, then.

He does not rise, although by rights he should pay his host the respect of doing so. They are both solitary men, despite this arrangement, and for the most part they go about their separate business in the daylight hours. Piandao pursues his arts and sees to the management of the estate, and Jeong Jeong goes wandering and swimming and works to restore an old sailboat left abandoned by long-ago occupants of the castle.

This is a shared hermitage, in a fashion. A thought which Jeong Jeong maintains, even if he is at this moment half-dressed and lying on another man's bedroom floor.

He hears the door open and feels the weight of Piandao's gaze upon him for quite a long time. Then the whispery footsteps reverse, disappearing into the corridor. When they return several minutes later, they are accompanied by the faint shifting of items on a tray and followed by the rustle of silk as Piandao sinks down beside him.

Tea, he thinks, but he can neither sense steam nor catch any fragrance save the incense that burns in Piandao's study. He turns his head to acknowledge him, curious.

Piandao sits with a pot of ink and two brushes upon the tray in his lap. Jeong Jeong raises an eyebrow in query. Another man would colour, but Piandao's embarrassment is nearly hidden in a certain set of his shoulders and tilt of his chin.

"Indulge me?" Piandao asks.

He has heard this phrase often in these weeks past. Piandao’s manners are beyond reproach, and for the sake of preserving his guest's dignity, he acts as though the acceptance of every act of generosity is a personal favour to him. Jeong Jeong has indulged him by wearing new clothing, and by joining him for sumptuous meals, and by making free with his library.

It pleases him, then, to be presented with such a presumptuous request. He smiles at the breach of protocol and at the almost nervous way one of the brushes dances between Piandao's fingers.

"Do I have to move?" he asks.

Piandao smiles in return. "No."

"Fine," he says, and he turns his face back towards the fire.

He is aware of all manner of ways that a man could be killed in such an unguarded position. A violent snap of the neck. A needle plunged into the ear. Even more fiendish: poison in the ink, left to seep slowly into a man's blood. Yet he closes his eyes and relaxes. There are far worse states in which to die than warm and fed and in pleasurable company.

The first cool, wet stroke of the brush kisses his shoulder. It is an odd sensation. His arms prickle with featherbumps despite the heat of the fire. He attempts to track each line and identify the characters, but he is easily outmatched by the smooth, seemingly effortless brushwork.

He can smell the bitterness of the ink and the warm sandalwood of Piandao's soap. The shadow of a touch follows below the brush, although whether it is silk or skin, he cannot say. Piandao's breathing is deep and even, almost deliberately so, as if it is an effort to keep his concentration.

The caress of ink descends slowly from his shoulder to his hip. A second column joins it, and then a third. His back is no unmarred page; he can feel, or more precisely cannot feel, the places where Piandao's work unerringly covers the insensate slash or hook of a scar.

The fourth column follows the line of his backbone. Here, Piandao slows, as if cautious of the uneven terrain. His left hand combs through Jeong Jeong's damp hair, holding it clear from the nape of his neck. The text descends in soft licks of the brush, so far that it skirts his smallclothes, the last stroke lingering just above his tailbone.

Jeong Jeong waits until the brush has withdrawn to the ink pot before he peers over his shoulder.

"What are you writing?" His eyes are not what they once were. He can see only straight, artful lines of cursive.

It is too long to be some frivolous love poem, as he half-expected. Piandao is not a soft man, but a sentimental streak runs through him.

"The Soldier's Art," Piandao says, his voice warm with amusement. "The prologue."

Jeong Jeong snorts and allows himself to be gently pushed back down so that Piandao can continue his work. There is no hurry to his hand. Each character is given life with graceful, careful articulation. The featherbumps bloom again on his arms, and upon his legs, and a wisp of fire curls deep in his belly.

"There..." When Jeong Jeong's back is canvas to seven columns in all, Piandao bends low and blows softly across his skin to dry the ink.

Jeong Jeong shivers, the little flame within him blooming. He rolls over, looking up at Piandao, whose pupils are very wide for a well-lit late afternoon, and whose hand lays tightly curled upon his knee.

Piandao clucks his tongue disapprovingly. "You've smeared it." There is no censure in his voice, however, and his gaze travels down with interest, reading what is written upon his body in more natural lines.

Jeong Jeong reaches up and pulls him down by the collar. "Indulge me," he says, and from his own lips, it is no gracious request, but an order.

For he is no fit guest for a host such as this, but Piandao seems inclined to keep him nonetheless.


End file.
